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Let me state from the outset that the hullabaloo and rancorous noises drowning the country over the decision of the presidential candidate of the All Progresives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to choose a fellow Muslim as his running mate is uncalled for.
It is not that I do not feel concerned about the Tinubu gambit. Actually, Tinubu is a man I hold in great awe and I once expressed my admiration of the man in this column in the past. Nothing has changed.
Nevertheless, I think he missed it this time. His choice of Kashim Shettima is insensitive not just to Christians but also to himself, as he risks a backlash. But I don’t believe that Tinubu hates Christians while sleeping and waking with a Christian pastor as a wife.
This also applies to the saying that he hates the Igbo. The Igbo should be smart and civil in their conduct with regard to this election. Whoever they wish to support is coming to office as a Nigerian President and not Igbo President. Being unnecessarily overly aggressive in expressing this choice lacks tact and common sense.
However, on Muslim-Muslim ticket, irrespective of what people may be saying, Tinubu only exercised his right by choosing Shettima. Nobody has the right to set the country on fire.
We live in a world of choices. We all have a right to feel offended by his choice but we must allow the man to exercise his own right to make a choice
What gets to me is the hypocrisy associated with this debate. Everyone wants to be counted as a Christian just to be religiously correct. A lot of the people posturing to be Christians have neither seen the inside walls of a church in years. They are also the ones that patronise juju men and prostitutes. They are the ones involved in occultism and ritual killings. They were the dollarised delegates that betrayed their Christian brothers at the party primaries. What nonsense are they now talking about?
What is wrong with Tinubu choosing to run with a fellow Muslim whereas you too have chosen to neglect your God and be friends with babalawo and idols. Are you not the same? Why make your own choice but deny another man his?
You that sponsor bigotry and all manner of killers in the name of Islam on an errand Allah did not send you are you any different?
Don’t preach to me about an agenda to islamise or fulanise this country. This is IMPOSSIBLE.
It is so if you resist it, not by the quantity of AK-47 rifles you acquire or the physical counter-attacks you launch. No, but by living the life. God uses foolish things to confuse the wise. You may ask Pharaoh which weapons God used to defeat Egypt during the Israeli liberation under Moses..
Christians are the salt and light of the earth. If you are salt and yet cannot make food tasty, you are useless. If you are light and cannot shine in our dark world, you are useless.
Don’t set the country ablaze because Tinubu chose his brother Muslim. Add your salt to our tasteless country; let your light shine instead. Perhaps, if you did, Tinubu would have been more considerate.
I’m only worried about how we have trivialised the leadership of this country. That is why we remain in doldrums. We exalt tribe and religion above nobler thoughts that could make the country better.
I believe it is time we tried other means in choosing our leaders. If the country would be salvaged by Muslim-Muslim, Christian-Christian or Muslim-Christian ticket, so be it. We have enough options and must not further our troubles in this scorched land by fighting over Tinubu’s choice of a running mate.
However, bigotry, cronyism and tribalism have blurred our vision and perception.
Tell me not about the Fulani agenda. So what? Don’t you have your own agenda? How about the Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa agenda? Everyone has a selfish agenda basically, in the sense that when your agenda jeopardises my life, I counter it. But how can I counter your agenda against my life when I sabotage myself?
That is what those making noises about the Fulani and Islamic agenda have done. They are the ones selling one another, stabbing their brothers at the back. They are the ones who cannot resist the scent of evil lucre, even if their mother would be violated.
How many are these Fulani; how come they seem to be squeezing our balls so tight and we can’t ease them off? The fault is ours, not theirs. They too want to survive. If you allow them to survive at your detriment, you are the fool.
Enough of the hypocrisy, so many Nicodemuses who are Pharisees in the day but steal to Jesus at night.
Indeed, striking a balance in a multi-ethnic and religious, fractious country like Nigeria is most ideal because there are no strong institutions to give everyone a sense of belonging and protect them from the shenanigans of those in authority.
Even Tinubu’s buddy, Babachir Lawal was unsparing in his stinging criticism of Tinubu’s misadventure, saying it would weaken the party. And truly, what Tinubu has done is an internal matter of APC.
Without consideration to all that have been alleged against Tinubu, here was a man among men. A man who picked total strangers and turned them into juggernauts in diverse fields of endeavour. His good deeds are trailing him with salutary testimonies.
The Peter Obi phenomenon has hit the country like an avalanche. It is sweeping across every nook and cranny of the country like a gale. Many Nigerians are increasingly becoming ‘Obidient’ and if they don’t weary easily, something great is in the offing.
Of course, age is on the side of Obi, and his antecedents speak volumes in his favour. But beyond the social media hysteria, Obi’s promoters should not take his opponents for granted. You cannot sacrifice age and experience on the altar of youth because history is replete with youthful leaders whose exuberance destroyed nations. Example is King Rehoboam, who caused Israel to scatter in 2kings 12.
The 2023 election is definitely a three-horse race between Tinubu, Obi and Atiku Abubakar, who is an old war horse that cannot be wished away.
I’m not sure of Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso, a man I used to think highly of until he inadvertently revealed his small mind lately. It is the likes of Kwankwaso that have shackled this country to stagnation and Nigerians should be wary of his ilk.
Of course, Obi rightly put him in his fitting place with his response.
The country is under the siege of bandits, terrorists and sundry hoodlums who are constricting its breath. Lame leadership afflicted by years of morbid selective justice has crushed the country’s soul, leaving it afloat putrid waters of inexplicable backwardness despite the guanguartan human and material resources God endowed her with.
Admittedly, marauding Fulani kinsmen have been running riot across the country, unleashing mayhem without restraint. Christian communities in the country are endangered, having suffered repeated attacks from terrorists and religious bigots. There have been frequent attacks on churches, while it has become a new fad to abduct pastors for ransom or kill them for fun.
